Waiting
by Solianne
Summary: Going outside alone is the last thing Mathilda wants to do at the moment, especially with the paparazzi lined up outside. But with a bit of luck, maybe she won't have to? One shot.


Waiting by the elevator, Mathilda sighed and rested her back against the wall. It had been a miserably long day, made even longer and more tiresome because Miguel had insisted on inviting Julia and Raul to their practice. This wouldn't have been so bad since Mathilda quite liked Raul and spent a lot of time talking with Julia; however it hadn't been just the two of them that had come along. Julia had apparently decided to invite Mariah, who'd asked Ray to come along who in turn had turned to Max and Tyson to see if they wanted to join in as well. Raul on his part had talked to Brooklyn who in turn had talked to Ming-Ming and Garland and from there on it seemed like everyone who could possibly be in town, and owned a beyblade, was going to come to practice.

And she meant everyone. Kai, Tala, Brian, Eddy, Emily, Crusher, Michael, Robert, Lee… So many people had showed up. Some she'd only met briefly before, others she'd only ever heard mentioned and suddenly it seemed like all the beybladers in the world had decided to come together for one huge practice together.

Then again, the fact that the Championships, for now at least, were over, probably meant that a lot of them were looking forward to a chance to play against their friends, settle old scores as well as just have fun. And since it was only a few days since the Championships ended, it wasn't altogether odd that so many of them were still in town.

Even so, it had been _exhausting_ for Mathilda to deal with so many people. It was crowded, noisy and altogether quite chaotic and overwhelming. She'd had fun, sure, but she was feeling the strain of it now. Her neck was stiff, her shoulders sore and her arm muscles hurt form having released her blade over and over again, each time facing a new opponent and a new challenge. Her fingers felt like they were going to fall off and the only thing she really wanted to do was settle down into a warm bath and not leave until she looked like a prune.

However, that plan had been busted when Miguel told her that the team was going to attend a smaller party with the rest of the bladers from practice. It had been a spur of the moment idea that he'd come up with while chatting with Raul, Enrique and Michael and it resulted in her having to hurry back to their hotel after practice in order to find something halfway decent to wear. She knew well enough by now that whenever Raul and Miguel said "small" it usually ended up being much bigger than that. And besides, Enrique was far too fond of his fans to _not_ invite them as well. Which would mean a ton of girls who all invited their various friends along and before you knew it, the party would be crowded with people, most of which she wouldn't know at all.

Arriving back she'd jumped into the shower, not wanting to attend a party while smelling like she'd just finished a marathon. Once done she'd frantically searched through her closet for something appropriate to wear. She wasn't a huge partier, she went out with Julia and Mariah sometimes, but generally she wasn't one to hit the town all that often so she didn't have a lot to choose between. Eventually she'd reached the back of the closet and found a blue one-shoulder dress that she had forgotten that she'd brought at all. Or, she'd bought in while they stopped over in London for a few days before heading to the Championships, but she'd put it in the back of her closet thinking that she wouldn't get any use of it.

Feeling relieved that she had something to wear; she'd managed to find her pumps as well. They were just simple black pumps and really the only ones she owned, but they also happened to be her favorites. Not very tall and certainly not uncomfortable they were the perfect going out shoes. With both shoes and dress down, it was only a matter of doing her makeup and fixing her hair and possibly finding a few accessories to top it all with.

It had taken some time, but she'd eventually managed to do her makeup the way she wanted it and curl her hair just a little so that it would look a bit livelier than it usually did. She knew she wouldn't be able to compete with Julia, but at least it looked as if she'd put some effort into it. Finding her favorite silver bracelet she'd looked herself over in the mirror and felt ready to go.

However, despite using, what she felt, a decent amount of time getting ready, her team was still nowhere in sight when she came down to the lobby, which was how she found herself waiting in the hall where the elevators were located, trying to keep her mind focused on pleasant things so that she wouldn't start freaking out about what she was about to face.

After all, there are few things in life that don't come with some kind of downside and in her case it was the paparazzi waiting outside the hotel. She'd seen them when she'd briefly walked out of the windowless safety of the elevator hall, thinking that she could wait by the bar instead she'd spotted the row of cameras and people before they'd spotted her and quickly walked back into the hall.

She really didn't want to face them alone. Usually they didn't care about her; she was a no one most of the time and whenever they did care about her it was usually in relation to one of her teammates or because of something Mariah or Julia was doing. And it suited her just fine because she _really_ didn't like cameras, they made her sweaty and she always worried that she'd trip or do something stupid and it would be all over magazines and newspapers the moment she did. Which she knew was a stupid concern to have, as she really wasn't that interesting, but it put a certain kind of pressure on her to look and act a certain way and it made her all kinds of nervous that she might mess up.

Rummaging through her purse she looked at her phone and sighed again. The party was supposed to start in 25 minutes and at this rate they'd be a lot more than fashionably late. Chewing on her lower lip, she looked up at the displays above the elevators telling her where the elevators were currently located. The one closest to the door was currently on the 11th floor and the other one was on the 7th floor. As she looked the elevator on the 7th floor began its descent and shortly afterward the one from the 11th floor followed. Biting her lip she hoped one of them would stop at the 5th floor, where her team had rooms, but as she followed both displays she saw that the one from the 7th floor had stopped on the 3rd floor and the one from 11th floor was about to reach ground level.

Sighing again she looked down at her shoes, wondering what could possibly be taking her team this long. Sure, they could spend a lot of time sometimes, but usually they were a lot quicker than this. Just as she was about to sigh again, her phone vibrated to alert her to the new message she'd received just as the elevator doors opened. Pulling out her phone she rolled her eyes when she saw it was from Miguel and opened the text.

_Hey Mattie! Me and the guys are at the club already. We left early to help the others prepare and didn't want to rush you. See you there!_

Nearly groaning she settled for another sigh, rubbing her temples with her free hand as she stared at her cellphone. Was he serious? He knew how much she hated going past paparazzi and there was no way he didn't know they were outside of the hotel since he would have had left the same way earlier.

Biting her lip harder she noticed a presence that had moved closer to her and glanced up.

_Tala_.

She didn't speak with him much, didn't have much reason to since it didn't seem like the two of them had anything in common. Well that and she'd had a rather big crush on him for quite some time after Tyson had defeated Brooklyn and the BEGA four years ago. Ever since she'd tried to stay as far away as possible as her team still teased her about the crush she'd had.

Still, seeing him now when she was alone was weird and she felt her body tingle slightly as she raised her head to meet his eyes. She still found him attractive, which was part of the reason why she'd spent most of the practice today trying not to watch him as he played against the other bladers. When she'd gone up against him, she had pinched herself regularly to remind herself to stay focused. If she didn't, Miguel would give her a hard time afterward and then the rest of the team would begin teasing her again and she knew they wouldn't think twice about teasing her in front of _him_.

"Mathilda?" hearing her name from his lips made her stomach feel all fluttery and for a moment she simply stared at him before she blinked and shook her head.

"Yeah?" she hoped she didn't sound as breathless as she felt, she'd tried to sound normal but apparently that was a lot easier thought than done.

"Shouldn't you be at the club with the others?" he didn't sound very curious, though she supposed the fact that she was hanging in the elevator hallway was a bit odd when she was supposed to be on her way to a club.

"They left without me," she shrugged, "didn't want to rush me since they left quite a bit earlier," she explained, trying to keep her voice as normal as possible.

"Ah," he nodded briefly, glancing towards the archway leading to the lobby and to the hotel entrance, the paparazzi and the car waiting outside to bring her to the club, before looking back at her arching a brow.

"I didn't want to go out there alone," she said before he could ask the question she could see was forming in his mind. "It feels a little…" she shrugged again, trying to find the right words, "a little like going out to slaughter," she eventually said, smiling sheepishly.

"Slaughter?" she could hear laughter in his voice and felt herself redden, glancing down at her shoes.

"They don't bite," he said after a moment and she glanced up at him, arching a brow of her own.

"Alright, they don't usually bite," he amended, grinning at her. After all, he was the one who'd nearly bitten the head of a photographer when he'd suggested that the Demolition Boys were cheating earlier in the Championships.

"They're not nice though," she said, still thinking about the incident a few months back that had caused Tala to snap at them.

"True," he shrugged his own shoulders and slid his hands into his pockets, "but they're not evil either," he glanced at her and grinned again, "which seems to be what you think they are."

Blushing again she bit her lip, glancing down at her shoes.

"They seem so…" she trailed off, looking up at him as she searched for the word.

"Aggressive?" he titled his head and she nodded hers.

"Yeah, aggressive," she shrugged again and smiled a little. "I guess it just feel a bit intimidating to meet them on my own," she felt her smile lessen as she sighed. "It's why I prefer leaving with my teammates."

"You could leave with me," he gave her a smile, which seemed mostly teasing though she thought for a moment she saw a glimmer of sympathy too. "I don't bite," he grinned wide, "that hard anyway," he said before laughing softly.

Unable to stop herself from grinning too she glanced towards the archway before shrugging her shoulders. "I guess with you I at least know that I have to watch out," she laughed softly as well, before nodding her head.

"But yeah, why not, it beats standing here," she gestured to the hallway and grimaced. "It's not very interesting and standing up and down here all evening would make my feet hurt."

Laughing at her comment, Tala used his arm to gently move her away from the wall and push her towards the archway.

"You'll be fine, you'll see," he murmured as he pulled her closer. Letting his arm hang loosely around her shoulders, they began to walk towards the entrance and towards the camera-holding sharks outside.

* * *

This is just a very quick I-can't-sleep-so-I-wrote-this kind of drabble. It's just a quick something I wrote to get it out of my head and down onto (electronic) paper instead and hopefully end with me getting some sleep instead.

It's in the same world as Rumor was set, though they're not really companion stories. However, if they were companion stories this one would come before Rumor.

I haven't left the world of fanfiction yet, but life takes its toll and time isn't something I have as much of as before either.


End file.
